When VideoVerse announced its acquisition In September 2025, it felt like a victory for startups across India. VideoVerse was a simple clipping service, but after years of startup incubators and client pitches, the company had achieved a $250 million exit.
The acquirer was Minute Media, an international sports publisher split between New York and Tel Aviv, with plans to take VideoVerse’s cropping software beyond its Indian niche and into the lucrative world of international sports.
Less than a year after the announcement, the deal has fallen apart.
Investors are still waiting for their share of the unexpected $250 million, and founder Vinayak Shrivastav is now at the center of multiple legal cases. Even the acquirer, Minute Media, appears to be backing down. In May, the company said it would terminate its contract with VideoVerse, stressing that the two had continued to operate as separate legal entities even after the acquisition closed.
Contacted by TechCrunch, a Minute Media representative said that “after, among other things, significant discrepancies in VideoVerse’s renderings were discovered, Minute Media decided to end its engagement with the company.”
If the allegations are true, this was more than just a deal gone bad. Through multiple legal filings, creditors and investors paint the picture of a serial lying CEO, who used the guise of a successful business to rack up cash-generating debt and side deals until the pretense became unsustainable. The result is an alarming reminder of the limits of due diligence and the extent to which startup business still depends on trust.
The sheer volume of legal cases shows that trust is now in short supply. Bluestone Capital, which backed VideoVerse in its 2023 round, is now suing the company for fraud, alleging that the startup violated its investment terms and refused to pay acquisition proceeds. In a separate lawsuit, a creditor seeks to recover $64 million of a loan Shrivastav took out shortly after the acquisition closed.
The same complaint alleges that Shrivastav committed fraud during the acquisition itself, alleging that he “used fraudulent merger documents that did not reflect the commercial terms under which Mr. Shrivastav and Minute Media had agreed to induce Clippings shareholders to approve the merger.”
Even VideoVerse executives have started to level accusations. The company’s chief operating officer alleges in a separate case that Shrivastav forged his signature on loan and stock buyback agreements, siphoning tens of millions of dollars from the company, in the wake of the Minute Media deal.
The cutting business
While not a household name, VideoVerse has become a key player in the multibillion-dollar clipping industry, providing automated tools for editing long-form streams into shorter clips that travel well on social platforms.
Its star product, magnificentis an AI-powered tool that can automatically identify players and key moments. Using the software, customers could easily generate packets of every three-point shot in a basketball game, for example. Backed by an extensive human support team, the platform attracted high-profile clients such as the Indian Premier League, FIFA+ and Nippon TV.
It’s a lucrative niche and one that Minute Media hoped to expand into the US market before VideoVerse’s internal problems arose.
Even in the multiple cases against Shrivastav, there are contradictory claims and inconsistencies, as investors struggle to understand the current state of the company. What is clear is that tens of millions of dollars are missing and there are already disputes about where the money went and how much is owed to whom.
In October, Shrivastav approached investment firm Lingotto and arranged a $55 million structured loan, ostensibly to satisfy a previous creditor. Given that the Minute Media merger was already public for more than four times that amount, it seemed like a safe bet. The financing was even supported by statements from the creditor and Minute Media’s own CEO. According to a Lingotto court filing, $53 million was transferred on October 1 to an account controlled by Clippings, supported by a standard payment schedule.
But Lingotto now says that critical documents provided by Shrivastav were forged. Minute Media’s CEO never signed the documents, the lawsuit alleges, and screenshots purporting to show internal bank balances were also fabricated.
Under the terms of the loan, Lingotto was owed a payment of $4 million on March 31, but it never arrived. When the investment company requested the full loan amount with interest, it discovered a long list of people waiting for VideoVerse to pay them. A separate loan from Bluestone Capital had been paid off a few months earlier, with payments similarly late. At the end of April, Shrivastav stepped down as CEO.
The ensuing months have produced a web of overlapping lawsuits, as Minute Media, Lingotto and Bluestone seek restitution in Delaware Chancery Court. A separate claim from former COO Sabya Das alleges a more complex web of fraud involving secondary sales and a confidential high-interest loan.
Shrivastav did not respond to multiple attempts to contact him for this story. His most recent address, listed in Das’ complaint, is on the Palm Jumeirah Islands in Dubai.
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